1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to provisional orthopedic components used to replicate final orthopedic components during a surgical procedure. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to provisional tibial components that assist in determining the proper size of a final tibial prosthesis for a prosthetic knee joint for replacement of all or part of a natural knee.
2. Description of the Related Art
Knee replacement provisional components are positioned on a distal femur and/or a proximal tibia to allow range of motion testing so that a surgeon can verify proper sizing of final prosthetic components. Knee replacement systems may include a wide variety of tibial bearing components, including bearing components which cooperate to form a posterior stabilized prosthesis, a cruciate retaining knee prosthesis or a knee prosthesis having an intermediate level of constraint between a posterior stabilized and cruciate retaining prosthesis. Such systems include a high number of provisional components corresponding to the differing constraint levels offered by the system as well as the different sized bearings for each constraint level. During knee surgery, a surgeon may remove and replace a provisional tibial bearing component of a first size with a provisional tibial bearing component of a second size to adjust the ligament tension of the knee joint. Efforts have been made to lessen the number of provisional components needed during knee surgery, including the use of adjustable tibial components having an adjustable height to allow the adjustable tibial component to mimic a variety of different sized final tibial prostheses.
One such device includes a spacer block positioned between a provisional bearing component and a tibial tray to provide additional spacing of the provisional bearing from the tibial tray. However, these devices require distraction of the knee joint to secure the spacer block to the bearing component and the tibia tray.